Often when thinking about Health and Wellness, organizations create a committee, initiate a program, or provide offerings through their insurance companies. All of these are valuable and relevant. In addition, it is important to incorporate health and wellness into the fabric of the organization’s culture and to recognize that health and wellness includes not just fitness and eating well, but stress reduction, work life balance, volunteering, being a community, and having a sense of purpose.

As a corporate and government executive, I spent untold hours in meetings. All too often they started and ended late, there was little or no agenda, there were few accomplishments and I felt like I never had time to do my “real” work, which often led to frenetic lunches – eating with one hand while typing with the other or late evenings or early mornings. I believe that there is a better way. Through creating healthy meetings, an organization can take a giant leap towards a healthier, more productive work environment.

Healthy meetings are an easy and inexpensive way to begin to develop or expand an organizational culture that features employees who thrive, increase their productivity, and enhance the organization’s bottom line.

A healthy meeting:

Has an agenda. Distribute the agenda in advance, it can be attached to the calendar invite.

Is purposeful. Provide a clear statement of the purpose at the beginning and a revisit at the end. There should be a measurable objective associated with the purpose that can be used to assess whether the conversation has gone off track and requires adjustment. If there is no clear purpose to the meeting, perhaps it does not need to occur.

Starts and ends at the scheduled time. Schedule meetings to start five or ten minutes after the hour and/or end five or ten minutes before the hour. This provides participants time to stretch, check email, and complete work assignments between meetings. While this may feel as if meetings are being shortened, in fact, it should lead to meetings starting and ending on time (as people are not rushing from the previous meetings) and being more productive. Some companies actually track the cost of employee time lost due to meetings starting late and find that it is a significant cost.

Includes Water and Healthy Snacks. Even when food or beverages are not served at the meeting, as a participant or leader model healthy behaviors, people will follow this lead.

Offers glasses and mugs for beverages. Provide glass and mugs, rather than paper, plastic and Styrofoam, as they are are both healthier and better for the environment.

Is conducted during a walk. Consider, if it is only a two or three person meeting, having a walking meeting. Not only will you get some exercise and fresh air, but studies show that walking increases creativity.

Includes a stretch break. Especially for long meetings, consider a stretching break. Sitting for long periods of time is demonstrated to be unhealthy. After stretching, people will return to their seats refreshed and with new ideas. There is research demonstrating that raising one arm at a time and stretching it backward and then forward increases creativity and improves solutions developed during meetings. Additionally, according to Amy Cuddy, if the stretch break includes a two minute power stretch, arms up over your head, people will feel more empowered and authentic when they return to their seats. Cuddy’s research indicated that people who do a two minute power posture before job interviews are more likely to get the job – imagine harnessing that power in meetings!

Allows participants to reduce stress. If your team knows HeartMath™, take a moment to reduce stress with this or another stress management technique at the beginning or during the meeting, especially if progress seems to be mired or things get tense or stressful. Conclusions reached during stressful meetings are often unworkable, have to be reconsidered, are not generally understood, or are not adopted.

Enables effective communication and active listening. If the purpose of the meeting is to solicit input from participants (as compared to a meeting where information is being presented), ensure that you have accurately understood feedback and that anyone who wishes to speak is given the opportunity to do so.

Considers the location Don’t require people to drink alcohol or smoke to be able to conduct business or have meetings. Having informal meetings in a social location is often a great choice, but be thoughtful about the location and the time of the meeting.

It is not easy to make the healthy choice the easy choice at work. While there is demonstrable evidence that reducing stress and improving employee health and wellness is good for a company’s bottom line, if it is not incorporated into the routine aspects of conducting the business of the day, it is hard for it to be successful. Conducting healthier meetings is one easy way for an organization to begin to experience the benefits of a healthier, more motivated and more engaged workforce.

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